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American Sign Language (ASL), like any other language, allows you to communicate your feelings. You can sign about how that movie made you sad or how seeing your Deaf friend made you happy: Angry: Make the open-5 hand shape, palm toward your face, and pull your hand away from your face, scrunching up your fingers.

Practice signing these basic expressions in American Sign Language (ASL) to meet and greet people, join in on conversations, answer questions, and be polite and courteous.

Learning the manual alphabet in American Sign Language (ASL) will help you when you don’t know a sign as you begin communicating. If you don’t know the sign for something, you need to use the manual alphabet to spell the word, or fingerspell. Check out and practice the manual alphabet:Note: If you need to fingerspell a word that has two letters that are the same, make a small bounce between the letters or simply slide the repeated letter over slightly.

In American Sign Language (ASL), knowing how to sign the cardinal (counting) numbers helps you in everyday situations like banking and making appointments. Pay attention to the way your palm faces when you sign numbers. For 1 through 5, your palm should face yourself. For 6 though 9, your palm should face out toward the person who’s reading the sign.

As you become more confident in your ability to communicate through American Sign Language (ASL) and begin to meet Deaf acquaintances and form friendships, keep some simple etiquette do’s and don’ts in mind.Do’s To get a Deaf person’s attention, tap him or her on the shoulder or flick the light switch. Let a Deaf person know that you can hear and that you’re learning Sign.

Signing one-word questions in American Sign Language (ASL) is a way to initiate small talk, get to know people, and gather information. When you sign these one-word questions, look inquisitive; the facial expression will come naturally when you are genuinely interested. Also, tilt your head and lean forward a little as you sign the question.

The majority of American Sign Language (ASL) sports signs look like what they represent. For example, the signs for tennis and baseball mimic the swing of a racket and bat, respectively. Don’t you just love it when signing is this easy? This table shows you popular sports signs. Signing ball is easy: Mimic putting both hands on a ball; do it with a double motion.

When you want to ask a question in American Sign Language (ASL), you simply sign the question word at the end of the sentence — words such as who, what, when, where, which, why, and how. After you sign your question, as a rule, you sign the manual question mark repeatedly. You also have the option of placing the question mark at the beginning of the sentence.

When sharing info through American Sign Language (ASL) about your profession, be it your job title or what your job entails, you can usually use signs specific to that job or function. This table lists just a few of the many job signs.